Amazon is offering you $25,000 for a kid-friendly Alexa skill

Looking to fill out Alexa's family-friendly skills lineup, Amazon launched a developer challenge on Wednesday. Interested parties can craft skills aimed at kids under 13 for a chance to win a share of $250,000 in prize money -- including a total of $25,000 to the grand prize winner. Converted, that's about £19,000 or AU$32,600. The skills need to be in English and submitted to the US Alexa Skills Store.

Alexa is Amazon's voice-controlled digital assistant built into smart speakers such as the Amazon Echo. Skills are essentially voice-activated apps for Alexa. For this contest, Amazon is seeking skills that are educational, fun, engaging or all of the above for kids under the age of 13.

Check out Amazon's announcement of the challenge for more details. Other than the grand prize, 19 other finalists will win $5,000, and contestants could also win money in categories such as the best educational skill or the best skill by a high school student.

If you're interested, you'll need to submit your skill by Jan. 10 -- though Amazon is encouraging contests to get their entries in sooner to gather feedback and ratings. Amazon will announce the finalists on Jan. 30 and the winners on Feb. 28.